Road to survival

Ah, finally! I survived my one and only known death flag! Now, even though I don't have to worry about it, I still have to worry about all the other times I might die. Anyway, my death is imminent when the war arc comes around in this world.

Now, if you know about your death, one will always try to avoid this fate. And you know what, that's what my plan is. It is a world where you could actually gain immortality, after all. And with all the knowledge that I have of this game, I could even be the God of this realm. However, that's not what I'm aiming for.

If I turn out to be strong enough to challenge the heavens, I might accidentally end up to be a prominent character in the war arc. For a person trying to avoid their death, it would be idiotic to head towards a battle. And, I'm not an idiot. I don't want to head to the war and I don't want my family to head to the war. And that's why, I will stop my little brother from being the right hand man of Wang Lei at all costs.

I have a hypothesis about how Ao Liu ended up being the berserker that he was. If all were to go according to plan, there was a high chance of me dying from that punch from Zhangsun Shan. And that would have given that revenge story arc for my little brother, who sided with "the devil" to avenge his dear sister. Ah, poor lad died for a sister that probably cared about a luxurious life more than him.

So, my plan is to avoid the war in general. If possible, I might stop my brother from joining in, because he doesn't have that revenge incentive in this play through, he might end up dying in the first battle. In the end, me living might hinder his potential. I don't care though. I'd rather see him alive than seeing him die with all his potential, even if that is incredibly selfish of me.

Anyway, rather than aiming for immortality on the get-go, I should find a way to fix my damn body. A body without the ability to cultivate… It's truly a curse. In order to survive, I either have to find a cure for it or find a sneaky way to live with it.

Well, if I am to live with it, I could always go with the shoujo manga way and marry one of the main characters to guarantee my protection. However, unlike those shoujo mangas, I'd be toast if I mingled with even one of them. Let's see… Heading into a romantic relationship with the main lead will lead me to a death flag since the Taiyi sect will perish in two years. And the same thing will happen if I tried my luck with the female lead as well. The thing is even if I'm in a relationship with one of them and ended up living together with them or something, I don't think anyone other than the four main leads will escape the carnage. Although, in that case, my death will lead to a revenge story, just like what happened in the game but with my little brother.

Since that's a dead end, let's consider the next two pivotal characters. First of all, the antagonist Wang Lei. Now, there's two things to consider about this guy. One, he doesn't get a happy ending. And that means the people around him didn't get it as well. Once he died in the final battle between himself and Zhangsun Shan and got his redemption story, the people siding with Zhangsun Shan did wreck the Blood Moon Sect and their subsidiaries. And the first thing they did was to slaughter the wife of the villain that tormented them for a long time. Two, the wife of the villain; the villainess… She'll slaughter me if I'm to get even close with Wang Lei. SO, even if I defied all odds, defeated my love rival and ended up with Wang Lei,all that I gain is sadness, despair and death. I don't wanna live in such a chaotic environment.

Now, if we are to consider a possible romance with the villainess instead… Well, let's not consider that for the time being. I don't even know how to get in her good graces. Then how could I be a love rival to literally one of the hottest and smartest characters in the game and end up with her. And when I think about it, I might even end up in an abusive relationship if it's with her. So, that's a no-no.

To sum it up, if I'm to get closer with even one of these main characters, then I'm dead. So, the shoujo manga route is off, unless there's a super powerful cheat character hidden in plain sight willing to elope with me and my family to a far away place.

So, let's get to the point. I have to do something about my body. There are a few choices before me in that region too. Look, the World of Cultivation was a one character per account game. That means we can't have multiple play throughs using different characters in one account. However, they had also locked in the skin and character type as well. So, once you finalize the gender, skin tone and the basic stuff for the main characters, you can never change it. So, if you made Zhangsun Shan into a midget and saved it and then you kinda wanted the generic type back, you couldn't have it.

However, the developers who usually pop up once in a blue moon, popped up once with a radical game patch called the chaotic mode. In this mode, after the massive attack that destroys the Taiyi sect, an injured Zhangsun Shan is carried away to safety by Qiu Si. However, the situation looked grim as Zhangsun Shan's condition kept on deteriorating. In the end, Qiu Si was given two choices, either let Zhangsun Shan continue to suffer the pain or put his soul into the body of someone else through an ancient technique and let him live. In game terms, for the first time the developers actually allowed the players to change their skin and if they wanted to, could even change the main character's name. Although, Qiu Si would call you by your in-game name though, while the others will call you the nameless warrior.

This event had a catch though. Once you choose to use the ancient technique, it is then revealed that it's a banned technique from the demonic sect that would corrode your mind and make you a demonic follower that would massacre everyone that stands against you and hence the name, chaotic mode.

So, if that was a possibility in the game, then it would be possible in this world too. However, I wasn't so keen about considering this, because unlike Qiu Si, who thought of Zhangsun Shan's massacre mode as a form of revenge and stood by his side, my family would definitely stand against me if I'm to do that shit. And I've already decided that I won't do anything that harms my family. And I don't wanna collude with the sect that worships a demon, so yeah, that's out of the box.

What I'm personally interested in was not that patch. Instead, I'm more intrigued about this DLC that the developers once released in Qiu Si's point of view. In this side story, Zhangsun Shan was attacked by a mysterious cult that placed a curse on him that destroyed his Qi center and thus he couldn't circulate Qi in his body anymore.

So, he asked Qiu Si for help who found out about a place called the Golden Mountain, where his Qi center could be fixed by unknown means. However, she learned that the place was so dangerous that the current Zhangsun Shan had no chance to enter that place, even with the Qi pills.

Therefore, the player, Qiu Si, decides to tag along with Zhangsun Shan, fending away powerful monsters and fighting the illusions of their mortal enemies and finally reaches the Golden Mountain. However, it was stated near the cave entrance of the mountain that only one could enter inside and once the person entered the region, monsters would surround the area, waiting for the person to exit the mountain. So, Zhangsun Shan enters and the player has to fend off the monsters for quite some time before Zhangsun Shan comes back with a triumphant look on his face. When Qiu Si asked about what happened inside the cave, Zhangsun Shan didn't reply. Instead he smiled as he headed towards the swarm of huge monsters. And thus, the sidestory ends.

Although the DLC was released with much hype, people found it disappointing. First of all, they didn't like to play in Qiu Si's point of view because they felt like she was the weakest among the four protagonists. And the repeated chore of beating similar monsters bored them as well. And the end cut-scene made them feel like fools since they didn't really come to know how Zhangsun Shan's Qi center healed. Overall, it was one of the worst DLC modes of the World of Cultivation. And to think that this DLC would end up being the thing that would help me out! Ah, life works in truly strange ways.

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